Parisian school unions and organizers are on strike this Tuesday, May 19. They denounce the “climate of suspicion” which has set in since the implementation of the new PS mayor’s action plan against sexual violence against children in after-school settings.
Parisian school leaders, called for a week by the unions to strike, are invited to demonstrate and amplify the movement this Tuesday, May 19, against “the policy of repression” of the municipality in the face of the scandal of sexual assault in after-school settings.
The sector’s inter-union association (seven unions) anticipates a “very sustained” mobilization, with the closure of after-school services in “200 to 300” of the 620 Parisian schools, Nicolas Léger, from Supap-FSU, told AFP.
The call for strike, which began on May 11 and runs until Friday, has so far impacted around 300 schools over the entire period, according to Alexandre Herzog of the CGT. The mayor, for her part, counted between 452 and 628 strikers last week.
“Necessary” suspensions
This Tuesday, the 14,000 leaders in the sector are also called to demonstrate in front of the headquarters of the Directorate of School Affairs (Dasco), in Bastille, to then march towards the Town Hall where Emmanuel Grégoire’s first ordinary Paris Council is being held.
The unions, whose appeal is supported by the inter-union of primary education, denounce the “climate of generalized suspicion and arbitrariness which has set in” since the implementation of the action plan of the new PS mayor against sexual violence against children in after-school settings.
“Suspensions are exploding, without support from the agents and teams concerned,” they lament. Since the start of 2026, 78 city agents have been suspended in Parisian schools, including 31 for suspicion of sexual violence.
“This intangible principle of suspension, the agents find it too harsh, I find it necessary as long as we have not rebuilt the conditions of trust”, explained the mayor on Monday, establishing a “citizen convention on the protection and time of the child”.
“I prefer to be scolded by the unions than to find myself having to justify myself to the parents of decisions that would have been too lax,” he added. The town hall nevertheless specifies that it has set up a working group to “achieve discernment” between ordinary educational violence and sexual violence during suspensions.
According to the inter-union, the social measures announced by Emmanuel Grégoire as part of his 20 million euro action plan are “totally insufficient to respond to the structural problems” of a very precarious sector in “chronic understaffing”.
“We need strong and rapid announcements on resources for after-school activities,” says Nicolas Léger. “The 20 million euros voted for must be devoted to upgrading the status and salaries of agents”, estimated on X Rachida Dati, unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Paris and co-president of the first opposition group at the Paris Council.
